Dealing with a New Job – Do’s and Don’ts of your Probation period

Fresh out of college, you want to conquer the world. Full of energy and filled with talent, you just want a chance to prove your mettle and surpass everyone’s expectations. Many big Companies and brands are actually looking for a talent like you – A person who can take their reputation to even greater heights. But with 70, 00,000 graduates and post graduates passing every year from India alone, it becomes difficult for companies to put their trust in people especially freshers.

As a result, a majority of companies have started following a 30 – 180 day probation or observation period before appointing a candidate as a full time employee. The duration of the probation period also depends on the nature and intensity of the job.

That’s why as a fresher there are many things and practices that you should follow to make sure that your probation period ends with you being appointed as a full time employee.

Being late/-taking unplanned leaves.

Never being late, infact being 10 – 15 minutes early is the best impression that you can leave on your manager. Same goes with never taking leaves in the probation period (especially unplanned), it shows that you understand the seriousness of the opportunity and are equally dedicated towards it.

A good way to ruin things for yourself is to either say yes to everything ( it doesn’t mean that you start saying no to everything) and start missing out on othe opportunities OR start planning / giving too many new ideas too much and eventually missing out implementing some or the other inputs you yourself gave.

As a new employee, you are setting a standard and reputation for yourself. Nobody wants to work with a team mate who is known for being careless or missing deadlines. Moreover, the senior authorities are always monitoring your work (although they might not react on the spot but take this as a must follow tip – every single thing is taken up in the performance review at the end of the probation period)

Excessive use of the Company facilities

A good company has many things to offer to its employees, high speed internet, coffee machines and eatables, the option to work from home once in a blue moon, etc.

The problem arises when you start abusing these facilities more for your benefit and less for the company’s. In a majority of cases your Manager will be a highly experienced person who will be able to easily make it out what you are you up. Another aspect of this is when you are working on a client site, one needs to be extremely careful in such cases. At times your client site manager will directly inform your manager about your shortcomings without dropping any hints to you. This obviously puts you in a very tight spot.

Understand that everyone is there to help you. Being the newest member in the team, the lightest task will be assigned to you in the initial days. Not taking enough initiatives or coming up with ideas gives them an impression that either you are not interested in the work or you do not have what it takes to be in the company. Either of theses cases is not going to work in your favour. So give adequate inputs where-ever required, the company will be very interested in understanding your mind-set. (Take that as another must follow tip)

Feel free to share with us your probation period stories and tell us what they taught you. After all sharing is caring, and who knows, your tips might help out others deal with their own probation times.